We had the good fortune of connecting with Nitya Kirat and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Nitya, how has your background shaped the person you are today?
People say I have an interesting upbringing, which may be true, but my take is that we really don’t control where/how we’re brought up until we get to college age and move out. But I’m grateful for mine.

I was born in Singapore at a time when it was in the early stages of it’s rise to the economic power it is today. There were a lot of buildings but a lot of green fields and hills across the island. A lot of the hills were flattened to help reclaim land and expand the land area for commercialization.

We moved to India when I was 11 (Bombay at the time, Mumbai now) and I lived there for 4 years. It was a very challenging adjustment for my family but by the end, I didn’t want to leave. That period helped me understand my roots and build relationships with my grandparents and extended family, as well as make friends I still have today.

The next move was to Tanzania where I completed my last two years of high school before coming to the US for college at NJIT (New Jersey Institute of Technology) NJ was not what I had envisioned based on the movies I had seen (and there was no internet to google things at the time).

Business school at UCLA brought me west, and it’s been 20+ years now, so for now…this is home.

My key lessons were that you can find ways to be happy or miserable wherever you are, that true connections and relationships are the real riches in life, and adapting to change is like everything else – you get better the more you do it.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
I had 5 jobs across 3 industries and 4 functional roles in my first 11-12 years after undergrad. And have now been in sales training and coaching for the past 13 – I love what I do and the people I impact. So while there have been challenges and a lot of hard work, it doesn’t get tiring.

We help companies who are looking for increased revenue and improvement across their sales and client facing teams through highly customized training and coaching programs. We combine sales science, psychology, coaching philosophies, and behavior design in our Tiny Sales Habits Process, to help clients achieve their goals.

I’m grateful for the range of companies I’ve been able to work with over the years, from Google and BlackRock, to middle-market companies across ALL kinds of industries (real estate, building services, healthcare, non-profit, professional services) to tech startups. The learning never ends and I’m proud that we can help so many different people.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Here’s my advice for people visiting LA who want to love it – don’t try to do all of LA in a day or a weekend. There are so many great “bubbles”, each is different and offers a unique energy and activities. But over a weekend, each offers so many things to do that you don’t need to spend a ton of time on the 405 or 10 or crossing town on SM Blvd or Ventura, etc.

Over the course of a week, I’d love to show them Malibu (Nobu is great), definitely want to get some korean bbq in K-town, and depending on their interest or whether they’re bringing kids, the Long Beach Aquarium is one of the best in the world. 3rd street and Main St. areas in SM are also an area I love.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I came to LA for my MBA at UCLA Anderson School in 2001. Many of us had moved from other parts of the country and the world to start the program and the week before orientation, 9/11 happened, and the world was changed as we knew it. There may be other factors, but that was certainly one that led to my class being extremely tight knit , which has continued to this day. In addition to my classmates, the alumni network as a whole has been very important to my success. It was an alum who I reached out to for advice and connected me to my first job out after graduation. My second and third jobs were also through alumni connections. And when I began my career in consulting, it was a former classmate who gave me that opportunity.

Website: www.yosdconsulting.com

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nityakirat/

Youtube: https://youtube.com/@tinysaleshabits?si=rF0QN7wP-3ZMQKh4

Other: www.winningvirtually.com

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